It was standing room only at the Riverside Ballroom at the Lambertville Station Inn for the rededication ceremony of the New Hope-Lambertville Toll-Supported Bridge on April 1. Invited guests, local dignitaries, representatives from the project’s construction and design teams and the media gathered for speeches and a countdown by local schoolchildren for the bridge’s inaugural lighting. Later, mummers from South Philadelphia Stringband played for the crowd with the brightly shining bridge lit up as the backdrop. The mummers then strutted across the bridge on the new walkway from Lambertville to New Hope and back. The event officially recognized the completion of the bridge’s major infrastructure repairs and improvements after extensive renovations for more than a year.
The bridge, owned by the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission, features a newly installed color-programmable LED lighting system that outlines the iconic bistate bridge that connects New Hope, Pennsylvania with Lambertville, New Jersey.
The Commission sponsored the ceremony and bridge lighting. To kick off the ceremony, the New Hope-Solebury High School Chamber Choir sang a beautiful rendition of the National Anthem followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led jointly by Commander Robert Topolin of New Hope’s American Legion Post 74 and Commander Bob Miller of Lambertville’s American Legion Post 120.
For the bridge lighting countdown, students from the “Crazy 8’s Math Club” of South Hunterdon Regional Elementary School in Lambertville, surprised all the attendees with an April Fools’ Day joke when the bridge lights didn’t immediately come on! But, the students led another countdown and the bridge lit up in sparkling lights in various shades of green, purple, red and blue.
Several Pennsylvania and New Jersey state and local officials spoke at the ceremony, including Laurence Keller, mayor of New Hope Borough and Andrew Nowick, mayor of Lambertville. Mayor Keller specifically acknowledged the excellent working relationship that New Hope and Lambertville have had with the Commission throughout the renovation process and with other bridge-related matters over the years.
“We are very, very fortunate that the progress of the renovation was pretty much as scheduled, even though they had a couple of blips on the screen and that happens when you have clients this big. For me, I always appreciated through the years that the communication between the bridge authority and Lambertville and New Hope has always been outstanding,” Mayor Keller said. “Everything was always terrific through the years. I can’t thank you enough on behalf of our council and the people of New Hope.”
The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission’s chairman, Aladar “Al” Komjathy, spoke about the challenges of the bridge construction project. “It is my good fortune to be the Bridge Commission’s chairman when this bridge’s turn came up for rehabilitation under the agency’s capital code. Capital projects are never easy, especially when the structure needing attention is a weight restricted, two-lane truss bridge like we have in New Hope and Lambertville,” said Commissioner Komjathy, who is a longtime Lambertville resident.
“This bridge dates back to the early 20th century. It predates mass produced automobiles and publicly owned bridges across the Delaware River. Point of fact, when this bridge went into service prior to the old toll bridge of 1904, the first vehicle to cross the horse-drawn bridge was probably a Studebaker horse-drawn wagon. So, when a bridge is that old, there is no such thing as an easy fix, if it can be fixed at all,” Komjathy noted.
Komjathy thanked all the New Hope and Lambertville business owners and local residents that endured daily noise and construction disruptions throughout the bridge’s construction phase that affected tourism and commerce for more than a year. He also thanked the thousands of motorists and pedestrians that regularly use the bridge for adhering to detours and travel restrictions, and he acknowledged the security, traffic, and maintenance staff that worked hard to make the project run smoothly.
Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Transportation Michael Carroll and New Jersey’s Commissioner of Transportation Fran O’Connor also spoke about the project. Secretary Carroll thanked “all the men and women who wear hard hats and vests everyday and do the real work.”
Commissioner O’Connor noted that bridges make connections between people and are integral for interstate commerce such as delivering and distributing local food products like New Jersey peaches, blueberries and Taylor Ham or pork roll (depending on where you are from in New Jersey). “May this bridge serve the Lambertville and New Hope communities for another 100 years,” O’Connor said.
Prior to the bridge lighting countdown, the Commission’s chief engineer, Kevin Skeels, recognized the entire construction and design teams including the general contractor, Anselmi & DeCicco, Inc., the design engineer, GPI, Inc., and management for construction and inspections, Urban Engineers.
A plaque was unveiled by Michael McCandless, project manager and professional engineer with the Commission. The plaque lists the major Pennsylvania and New Jersey participants involved with the bridge’s rededication as well as the project’s construction and design teams. The Commission’s vice chairwoman, Pam Janvey, also recognized the elected representatives from Pennsylvania and New Jersey in attendance.
The Commission’s executive director, Joe Resta, acknowledged all involved with the project and the reason for the rededication ceremony: “Today we celebrate the end of all this work,” Resta said.
For more information about the New Hope-Lambertville Toll-Supported Bridge and the overall construction project, visit the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission’s website at drjtbc.org.
